I will be adding events to this as they arise, but here are the ones so far.
Come and have a go at stone carving with me, £5/person. I will have some of my popular hand painted slate letters and hearts and my cute brightly coloured resin hearts available to buy at £5 each.
I am really looking forward to taking part in this years Benenden Art Fair, from the 3dr to the 5th of October.
This looks to be a real highlight of my calendar and a place to showcase some of my more sculptural stone carvings.
You can find me at stand 8, diagonally across from the welcome desk, I’ll make sure that I have something special to draw your eye, such as this piece.
Inspired by the shape of a broken seashell.
or this piece
Inspired by ancient Ice Age sculpture.
I will have a selection of some of my smaller pieces in the form of bookends, faces, the green man and some of my carved words.
I am working on some new smaller pieces and I look forward to bringing these to you at this event.
What a wonderful weekend I had at the Betteshanger Country Park, when pit heads dotted the landscape, this was a slag heap for the local coal mines, once a barren landscape, it has been turned into a visitor centre and nature reserve.
The Sandwich Medieval centre and the owners of the park decided to bring us all together here to celebrate and educate.
There was a shoemaker there who said that they could make me some steel toe capped medieval shoes. Might need to save up a bit.
I have been taking part in events with the Medieval centre since 2022 when I decided that I wanted to spend more time with my family but couldn’t just shut my business for a week.
This is the link to the first post I wrote that year, there are more detailing the progress and other events that I took part in back in 2022.
I designed and started a carving that would showcase the wonders of stonemasonry and carving, a complicated project that would see me through the Summer of events. I based my design on a medieval capital, featuring 4 medieval characters, the capital, an architectural feature, standing on a pillar with an arch springing from the top. obviously that would be a corresponding one to support the arch on the other side.
As a result of this carving, I caught the interest of the Maison Dieu and so this collaboration was born and I couldn’t find the time to finish my carving.
As it is the 20th Anniversary of my business this year, I decided to get back out and take part in more events this year. I had to replace my vehicle and now I can get everything that I need in the boot with the seats down, so putting two bankers in and all my equipment, stock and shelves in although tricky, means that I can take more out. I brought my carving with me to finish and while I’m still a few hours away from finishing, I’m glad to say that it is almost there.
I decided to finish the top by carving a plait detail. I’ll put the photos of the finished carving up as soon as it’s finished. I might still carve a pillar and a pedestal for this though.
The line in the bottom of the stone was a flaw in the stone, I knew it was here and this was one of the reasons that I chose the stone for this demonstration piece, I need to keep the good bits for my commissions. I’ll tidy up and repair it properly once I have finished the carving.
I might even be able to fit more in.
Next event is at the Sunken garden on the 21st September, I will be demonstrating and you can come and have a go. I can’t get close with my car so I won’t be able to take much to sell.
I have been so focused on my commissions that I thought it was time to put a post up about my shop and what I have available to buy.
I design and create a wide range of carvings, exploring letterforms and mythological creatures.
The Greenman is an interesting subject for a stonemason, this foliate face appears almost everywhere and in many forms. I love looking at the leaves and coming up with new ways to interpret him.#
My Viking Greenman, started life as a Greenman, I stopped to carve a commission of a Viking and when I came back to my carving, the Viking Greenman was born.
Hand carved out of Tetbury limestone, this carving is 7 x 7.5 inches square and costs £850.
Lettercutting is a large part of what I do and I love to explore the creativity that can come with lettercutting.
Petrichor, my favourite smell, after a dry spell comes the rain and the bacteria in the earth is released, that is the smell we love.
Hand carved out of Forest of Dean sandstone, it measures 10.5 x 4.5 inches and costs £145.
Meditate is also carved out of Forest of Dean sandstone and measures 10.5 x 3 inches and costs £145.
These words are all designed and carved by me, prices vary depending on the complexity of my carvings, the size and finish.
My hand carved and painted letters are extremely popular, I carefully cut the stone to be the right size for the many different letter forms. Once I have drawn out the letters each one is hand carved using a hammer and chisels, I try and make sure that I have a good selection of colours, my Mermaid and sunset colours are slightly larger and prices for my letters range from £5 for the slate painted ones and from £18 plus for the hand carved ones.
I have made moulds of some of my creations, whether they were sculpted out of clay as the cat or the Hare, stone carvings such as the boat bookends and the Acorn and Oak leaf or plaster carvings such as the small Greenman and the cheeky grotesque. These creations remain unique to me and each one is hand finished. So even though they come out of a mould, each one is different.
These range in price from £3 for the resin hearts, £30 for a calf or a hare up to £125 for a pair of bookends.
My grotesque in the last photo, with the boat bookends is a stone carving. He’s hand carved out of Tetbury limestone and costs £1200.
This is a cast of the stone carving that I made for the Compass Rose, thankfully I made a mould of the original carving that no longer exists. This can be made to order at a cost of £225 per cast, finished with gold leaf and paint. Measuring 8.5x 11 inches.
This last set of photos shows you around my shop. I have so many interesting and wonderful things to buy.
I am always adding new carvings and creations to my shelves.
If there is something in particular that you would like to ask about please feel free to get in touch.
Over the last three years, I have been working with the Maison Dieu re-awakening programme, you will have seen my posts from all the wonderful days that I have spent with them, whether demonstrating and running have a go sessions or carving my beastie for the handling objects.
Activities at Dover Castle in conjunction with the Maison Dieu and Christ Church University College in Canterbury, for SEND, an organisation for youngsters with special needs. I don’t have any photos of the children carving but I had a lovely set up in one of the historic buildings at next to the Keep at Dover Castle. Photos courtesy of Nastia Photography.
It was very exciting driving up into the Castle Keep area.
I also ran activities for the Heritage weekend last September at the Biggin Hall in Dover, in conjunction with the Maison Dieu and Future Foundry. Members of the public were invited to come and try their hand at stone carving with me, watch and meet the conservation teams involved with the restoration of the Maison Dieu.
This is my most recent commission from the Maison Dieu and I had to wait to show off the photo of my as it was a gift.
At the opening weekend on the 10th and 11th of May, I spent Saturday sitting outside in the sunshine. I was given a piece of stone from the original fabric of the building. (I could only do one of the days as I was still recovering from my broken ankle at this point).
I had cleaned and sanded the stone and then drew out the design on the stone in my workshop. I wanted to make sure that it fitted beautifully in the shape of the stone. The Wyvern and the letter type is from the original William Burges designs, this font can be found around the walls of the stone hall and the Wyvern is found on the painted walls of the Mayors Parlour. It is used as the logo for the Maison Dieu.
The carvings that I created were finally used for the purpose that they were commissioned for.
Above photos and the one of me carving, courtesy of Nastia photography and Martin Crowther.
It’s so exciting to know that my carvings will be inspiring and delighting young and old for generations to come.
I was within an hour of finishing and so I completed the carving in my studio.
I look forward to the continuing collaboration with the Maison Dieu, the next big thing is a stonemasons festival in May 2026, we’ve already sorted out some blocks of stone for the carvers to choose from.
I will be designing and carving something inspired by the grotesques of this wonderful building which will be raffled to go towards the upkeep of this magnificent building.
He brought me the delicate carving of an existing one to work from, only 6 inches tall and less that 4 inches square, with a fair amount of detail missing.
I was able to source some Caen stone from the Canterbury Cathedral works-yard. Dense and hard, yet lovely to chisel, saw and sand.
I took some measurements and marked the profile of the base onto the stone.
I used the profile gauge to create a template for the base, the original carving was out of square so I replicated the new one with this in mind.
As there was only one to carve, and there wasn’t a lot of time, I didn’t make a technical drawing, (given more time, I would have done this first). I transferred the measurements directly from the original one and used my knowledge to fill in the missing pieces.
Once I had carved the base, I used this as my datum point so that I could make a template of the shape of the main body of the finial.
Carving the Cyma Reversa.
I carved the basic features and then drew on the mitre line to create the corners.
The crocketts are organic shapes based on the Acanthus flowers and leaves, this is what gives the finial it’s shape and is used extensively in architecture.
Once I had the basic shape blocked out, I drew on the details of the leaves, making sure that the centre line and the mitre lines remained in place. I used small rifflers to get down to the stone behind the middle of the leaves, so I didn’t damage the base, I put my thumb in the way to protect it.
I moved it from it’s cradle and soft bedding to a basket of sand in order to protect the edges as I got closer to carving the finer details.
Once I was sure I was happy with the carving, I tidied up the edges and added my stonemasons mark.
I had to create the tops of the acanthus leaves using my knowledge of this architectural feature, as you can see from the original, I didn’t have anything physical to work from. The back of the original remained uncarved and it wasn’t even square, so this challenged my knowledge and experience of historical architectural features. I put my stonemason’s mark at the back of the carving, it should be there for many years to come.
I look forward to seeing photos of my carving in situ, the restoration of this Church is being carried out by Adderley Stonemasons, check out their website for more information.
